If You’re Not First Page On Google, Then Why Not with Olu Ajanwachuku

Andy Splichal

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal. We are happy to welcome this week's guest and discuss today's topic, which is, if you're not on the first page of Google, then why not? Today's guest is a minority business owner and mechanical engineer, turn digital marketing consultant. As the founder of GVATE, he has had the opportunity to consult small, medium enterprise companies across different verticals. Distinctive traits of today's guest include his unrelenting desire to solve complex problems as simplistical and efficiently as possible, which has allowed him to help his clients increase visibility on Google and other times, improve their brand image on the first page of Google through SEO and reverse SEO respectively. A big welcome to Olu Ajanwachuku.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Hi. Thank you for inviting me.

Andy Splichal

Okay. I, I hope I didn't butcher that name too much.

Olu Ajanwachuku

No, you're fine. You got it just perfectly.

Andy Splichal

All right, great. Well, let's get started and talk about first how SEO changed. I remember before the Panda and Penguin updates, wow, almost over 10 years ago, 2011, 2012, all you really needed were optimized titles, submit tags, a couple back links, and you'd rank really well. What is needed today, in your opinion, to rank well organically?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yeah, that's a great question. So, yes, SEO has changed a lot quite frankly. I tell our clients SEO changes on a daily basis because Google tweaks their algorithm like literally every single day. But some of the biggest changes are, you know, now more than ever. There are three main points that business owners need to focus on when it comes to seo. Firstly the contents you need high quality contents and relevant contents. Also the way your website is structured along with the UI or user interface is extremely crucial to your SEO success as well, because, Search changes are just algorithm, and they need a way to easily access contents on your website and get an a good understanding of what it is you're trying to present. So that's why your website structure is, you know, extremely important for SEO. And finally, the third item is high quality. And not just quality, but relevant backlink. So these three items are extremely essential nowadays to have, you know, a really strong SEO and, you know, remain competitive on the first three of Google .

Andy Splichal

What about site speed? I know last year, I think it was you released talking about the web experience.

Olu Ajanwachuku

The web experience about first optimization. Yes. So that's also very like essential but more so for your mobile ranking. So if I was to add one more item to that list of like the top item will be definitely the site speed just put tend to perspective. We typically do site site speed optimization audits on a monthly basis and for our own website, realize out of nowhere, you know loading speed literally went up. In other words, like it took a lot longer to load. Mm-hmm. And from our investigation, we realized there were some outdated WordPress plugins that were, you know, causing a delay when the pace tried to load. And upon removed those plugins and updated a few other plugins, we noticed a drastic increase in our mobile ranking as a result. And all of this, you know, is because all of this pretty much came about because we run audits on a monthly basis, not just for our website, but for our client's website as well. And like I said earlier, Google updates the algorithm algorithm every day. And there's such change algorithm is extremely sensitive. So whenever something's off, like your loading speed, as you mentioned, it notices and you'll feel the impact right away.

Andy Splichal

How would you rank what's important in terms of S C L, like page titles, contents, sites, feedback links, I guess, is there anything that's more important than others where. I mean, do you have to concentrate on all of 'em? Should you concentrate on one harder than another? If you're trying to have your website ranked organically, what, where, where do you even start?

Olu Ajanwachuku

No, absolutely. That's another good question. So I always tell clients content is king. So you always wanna start with great content followed by your metadata.

So, like I said earlier, Google's algorithm is just an algorithm, you know, and it needs a way to fully understand what a landing page is about. So your metadata needs to be well optimized. Next I will say in line will be your backlink. Because although Google will somehow sometimes come and say, Hey, look, backlink is not that important.

It is because we look at the stats every day. You know, when we do monthly audits, we notice that there is a direct correlation between loss of backlink and loss of and loss of ranking for virtually every client. You know, so although Google may come and say, Hey, don't focus so much on backlinks, it's, it's still very important.

Next line. I will say the size, speed, you know, like you mentioned as well earlier, that's extremely crucial, especially for mobile first. Mobile first ranking, and finally the user interface. Because when people visit your website, you want to, you know, you want your landing page to feel welcoming.

You want, want, want it to be easy for them to actually not just discover content on that landing page, but also find themselves on other pages, on their website, on your website that's relevant to that landing page or more more importantly, relevant to whatever it is they're looking for. Because what all of this adds up to is more time being spent on your website, a lower bounce rate, and ultimately, you know, higher conversion at the end of the day.

So that, that's more or less how I will rank all of those different factors.

Andy Splichal

So number one is content.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes, content is always king.

Andy Splichal

What about Chat GPT? Have you, you know, that's, everybody's talking about it, but yeah. Talk about, about content creation. Do you guys use Chat GPT for content?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes, absolutely.

We actually had a post go out today. I'm not sure. I think it should have gone on by now. So there is a social media post that we had scheduled for today where we pretty much use Chat GPT to act as a co-pilot in creating that blog post. And I think the system is being the future of search.

So this blog was written in February and, through the utilization of Chat GPT, this content, and plus of course with experience. In terms of, you know, our knowledge of et cetera, et cetera. We've been able to somehow rank this content on the first second page of Google's within a month.

And that's through the utilization of Chat GPT as a co-pilot. So Chat GPT has been, I would say has been act as a major contributing factor to our ability to not just work faster, but also better optimize, you know, our contents and our clients' content as well. So, yes, so Chat GPT is definitely that's definitely making an impact.

Andy Splichal

With your SEO services. Do you guess before and after Chat GPT, did you assist on writing content for clients?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes, actually we do. So because one thing we notice is the fallen, A lot of companies when they write contents they focus so much on the creative aspect of it, which is good. By the end of the day, you're investing capital into creating contents and you want that content to somehow. You know, results in some kind of conversion down the road. So essentially what a lot of clients typically are missing their content is, you know, proper SEO optimization, proper structuring of the content and so and so forth. So you know, when we advise our clients, we usually help them with the optimization of the content suggestion in terms of, you know, the title to use, how to structure it, such as using the head attacks within the content, you know, utilizing schema.org when they're creating their block landing page and so and so forth.

So that's more or less how we offer support to our clients prior to Chat GPT as far as SEO is concerned.

Andy Splichal

And what about. Now after Chat GPT is available,

Olu Ajanwachuku

I mean, now that Chat GPT is available there is something we that's, you know, slowly becoming a trend and that is prompt engineering.

Mm-hmm. A lot of people are not familiar with how to properly utilize Chat GPT to get the best results. So although Chat GPT is, you know, it's like Google search engine where you can just answer whatever question and get the answer. But the reality is just asking questions not, is not the only part.

You need to know how to ask a question and how to ask a follow-up question to ensure that you get the right outcome. So, although Chat GPT is easy to use, accessible low barrier of entry, and all of that, Our clients to allow on us to utilize that and utilize our prop engineering skills to actually, you know enter the proper search into Chat GPT to get the right outcome. Instead of just typing away, you know randomly into Chat GPT, hoping that it'll just magically result in the content that ranks high on Google.

Andy Splichal

You know, I'm curious, have you used the Google ai? I think it would bard, I believe.

Olu Ajanwachuku

I received an invitation.

Andy Splichal

I did too. Yeah. That's why I was asking. I got the invitation, but I haven't checked it out yet.

Olu Ajanwachuku

I checked it out and I feel. I'm a little concerned for Google because it's very basic, it's super primitive based on my opinion. And I'm saying that just based on my, based on my knowledge of Chat GPT and my experience utilizing Chat GPT because I'm, you know, interested in AI and things of that nature.

So I started learning, you know, Python code and recently, like machine learning, all of that, and literally Chat GPT has acted as a co-pilot in that process where I can literally ask Chat GPT Hey look, write me a sample Python code and Chat GPT does it. Effortlessly. Mm-hmm. When I ask Google, the response is, I'm not that stage yet, so you can ask me for Really, okay, that's good. Yeah. It's like, you know, you can ask me for a list of recipes and things of that. And for me that was just a major turnoff. I'm like, I'm not gonna waste my time on this. So they're clearly still working on this. Either maybe the version I use didn't have that ability, or not, I'm not sure. But that, for me was just a major turnoff.

Cause I, I thought Google would understand how important this is and that their position in industry is currently, you know, at risk, you know because Chat GPT in terms of the level of sophistication and what Google released . to be tested. I was not impressed at all. So I haven't tried the bank. I already received the invitation to use it.

But the bank, I'm assuming will be just like chat G P T because I think theirs is based on Chat GPT four version. So I expect, you know, the, the bank to be a lot better. But yeah the Google new search, I was not impressed.

Andy Splichal

Now let's go back to SEO and why people should be focused so much on, on their seo. What happens? Do you have any stats? What happens in terms of how much traffic you get? You know, you're on the first page or, or even in the first couple spots of Google versus if you're not, I mean, how much, do you have any stats on how much does your traffic decrease as you, as you move down page one and, and even off of page one?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yeah. So the way I kind of explain to clients as follow you have to think of seo like a real estate, right? Real estate appreciates over time without you really doing much work. And if you renovate, you increase the value as well. So SEO is similar, you know, and compare that to Google Paper, click where if you. Want that traffic to continuously, you know, come in, you have to keep paying Google to drive that traffic to your website. But SEO's, different, SEO's like building value over time. And if you manage to end up on the first page of Google and you're doing constant work and doing audits on a monthly basis to make sure that you stay on top of all the problems, you'll be, you know, you'll be sharing you pretty much be like, I would say 90% of the traffic that's coming to Google's search engine. You, you'll have a, a piece of that pie, you know, if you're able to maintain your position on the first one of Google. And if you're only ranked on the second page, only about 5% of the traffic that comes to Google ends up on the second page of Google. And then that number just, Drops drastically as should go further and further back on Google search result pages.

So if you really want to, you know own a piece of that real estate of 90% of traffic that comes to Google search engine, you need to be on the first wheel of Google. And on top of that, you don't have to worry about paying Google every time a visitor makes their way to your website. From the Google's, Google's first page, unlike Google paper click, you have to constantly pay Google every single time, right? Traffic, you know, ends up on your website.

Andy Splichal

Now what about, do you have any idea on how much traffic, how many people click on the paid ads versus the organic? Because it seems like especially the last. Ever since they moved Google shopping made it more prominent. Mm-hmm. Especially for e-commerce, it seems that you gotta go ways down to, to start to get to the organic listings.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yeah. , And I'm glad you asked that question. So the problem actually started a lot, like further back, so I remember I think it was four years ago we were in our office and out of nowhere we notice a change in the interface of the ads the way it typically shows before, it's like a yellow icon and it shows ads so you can notice it, right?

Right. That's an ad. And a lot of people typically avoid click on that because they know it's an ad. Google knows that. Right. So somewhere along the way, Google decided to move that yellow icon and literally just format the ad results to look almost identical to the organic results. Mm-hmm. At that point in time, we figured that, okay, Google.

Suffering from a financial standpoint, and they need to drive revenue, and that's why they're making this change. And this resulted in us actually change our strategy to local SEO so that we'll rank on maps more and less on the regular surp. So to answer your question, most of the traffic actually goes to add nowadays more now than ever before because you, it's hard to discern between organic results and paid results.

And Google intentionally did that. So they can of course, increase the clickthrough rates on their ad results. And as you stated, you have to scroll all the way down. Like below the fold to see organic results nowadays. And essentially anything that's below the fold does not really, you know get a used chunk of the traffic that ends up on the first video of Google anyways, so the fact that they're showing four ads and they, sometimes you have, you know, three map results under the ad, and then sometime inside the map results, it's like one ad or two ads shows up. So that's literally the first page of Google. That's, that accounts for that, for the 90% of the traffic that usually ends up on that page because 90% of the traffic that ends up on the first page typically goes to the first 10 results anyways. So if you're,

Andy Splichal

say that again, 90% the traffic goes first, first page, yes.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Which is per the first way of Google. So if your ads, if ads are taken up 40 to 60%, you know plus map of the first page, so that means some, somewhere in the ballpark of like someone to 80% of that 90% is going to the ad. The map results and then adds within the map results. So as a result, you know regulars positioning, I really don't re recommend it much to clients anymore.

It's still essential, but you want to, you know, you want to rank for map results and if you're not a local business, then sure you need to go for the regulars SERP results or search engine result pages. That's more or less what the SERP stands for. But yeah, so that's more or less how things have changed.

You know, due to the change in the UI of the ad section of the first page of Google, this has made it a lot harder to tell the difference between organic and paid. Mm-hmm. And as a result, drove more traffic to paid results.

Andy Splichal

You know, I'm curious, are there any website platforms that you think perform better than others? For SEO?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes. So it really depends on what kind of industry that you're in.

Andy Splichal

Well, let's talk E-commerce.

Olu Ajanwachuku

E-commerce. So if you're in e-commerce, I will say Shopify. Barnard Shopify is the best platform out there, followed by WooCommerce, which is part of WordPress. Mm-hmm. So Shopify is the best platform one, it's easy to maintain. You don't need to be a developer to really keep up, you know with your website maintenance. Also, they have a lot of integrations to make it easy to collect payments on the platform. Easy to upload your products, easy to optimize your product metadata and also other SEO semetrics as well. So I would say Shopify.

But if you have like a, if you're just a general business then WordPress will be the best platform by far. WordPress has the most highest number of plug-ins available for integration into your website, to boost the functionality of your website. And if you're more like a creative, like maybe you are a photographer, we have some clients who are, you know, who offer photography services and so and so forth, then I will recommend Squarespace others, it's not really that good when it comes to SEO functionality. It's the best c m s out there or content management system for creatives.

Andy Splichal

Now let's, let's talk about, you know, the one thing that comes up is everybody wants to get traffic. Whether you're doing it organically or you're doing it paid, but I mean, if that traffic doesn't convert it, it doesn't really matter.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Exactly.

Andy Splichal

Now, do you give your clients tips on how to increase their conversion rates?

Olu Ajanwachuku

So typically we avoid giving that tip. But if we notice that they're really suffering and their complaint, because typically when clients come to us, they come for seo. SEO pretty much means you want us to put you on the first video of Google or on top of maps, and it does not guarantee that someone's gonna actually purchase your product or your service because that decision is based on the quality of your service or product and the price points. That's really what determines at the end of the day if someone's gonna make that purchase. But if we notice that, hey, look, we're doing a great job with SEO and you know, this client's not converting, and that's where we come in and say, Hey, look you might wanna work with your designer or your engineer to really you know iron out the UI of your website.

And some of the suggestion we usually provide is, you know it starts with the headline . That's the first attention grabber. You wanna have a clear and compelling headline when you, when you're creating a landing page. Next line is, you know, call to action. Your call to action needs to be compelling as well.

It needs to be, you know, it needs to grab my attention or the attention of anyone that's visiting your website. And finally, the most important thing is social proof. If there is no way to associate value and reputation to your product or service, it's gonna be a little hard for people to actually trust your brand.

So we always recommend clients to post their reviews, get reviews from their past customers, have like an email automation campaign in place, collect reviews even if they can collect video reviews even better. And also we encourage, you know doing PR as well so they can get some exposure in different media outlets.

So yeah, so that's, that's pretty much how we go about offering our advice when it comes to conversion rates.

Andy Splichal

Yeah, some, some great advice. Back to seo. If a listener, let's say they're just getting started and, and they can't afford an agency, but they, they wanna, you know, they wanna rank well, they want to get into Google Maps.

What are some actionable steps that you would recommend?

Olu Ajanwachuku

No, absolutely. That's an excellent question. Yeah, there are a lot of people who, especially now with Chat GPT everybody feels they can do their SEO by themselves, not, and they probably can't with some level of guidance. Of course. So if you, you know, let's say you don't have a big budget and you want to do, you're, you're just a startup and you want, you want to do your SEO by yourself.

There's some action actionable items that I will recommend. First and foremost is do your competition research. See which companies are out there that are doing very well on the first page. Google and offer the same service or sell the same product that you sell. Once you find out who your competitions are, then move on to your keyword research.

Try to conduct keyword research from, you know, low hanger fruits to like high competition keywords to see what kind of keywords you can target.

Andy Splichal

What do you use for your keyword research?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes. You know, quite frankly you can use Chat GPT for key for research really, right? Yeah. But we use more advanced tools like Semrush

spiteful. We used to use that, but it's not as comprehensive as like a h f and Sam rush. Mm-hmm. So we typically f utilize Sam Rush and a H F for, you know, a Q research and SEO research and so on and so forth. Spiteful is great. If you're looking to like, have All-in one, like PPC research and SEO research it's definitely great for that.

Cause we did try for a year at one point cuz we usually ab test tools from time to time and we ab tested spiteful for about a year and we didn't really like the level of performance. So we kind of stuck with Stem Rush and a H r. So those are the tools that we use for our keyword research. So.

Andy Splichal

Cool. So you identify your competition, you do your keyword research, and then what's the next step?

Olu Ajanwachuku

And the next step will be I know I've said this a lot of time already, but content is king. The next step is to figure out the kind of content that you wanna publish on your website. So this could be landing page contents.

This can be FAQs. This could be blogging contents, it could be resource content. You need to create a content strategy. And when creating a content strategy, you also wanna keep in mind your keyword research as well, because your goal is to target those search terms through your contents. So that's the next thing.

And then finally, you know, you wanna optimize your user experience and you want to do so in a way where when you do a speed check on a monthly basis number one, your page loads really fast. And also you want to, you know, keep an eye on your bounce rate through Google Analytics to make sure that you have as low of a bounce rate as possible.

That's how you know that you're optimizing your user experience, because if your bounce rate is super high, That means something's wrong and you need to do something about it. So that's pretty much I, those are like the top three recommendations that I have for someone just starting out, or maybe they don't have the su sufficient budget.

Andy Splichal

How long, I guess, let's say you, you do, you do the competitive research. You look at the, the keywords, you create the content, but the content isn't ranking, it's not getting picked up. How long do you wait before you look at maybe changing the content? Or are you looking at more things like trying to find back links to it, trying to get people the link to it, trying to, to work on the on page track?

I mean, I guess where, when do you, when do you cut bait with that content?

Olu Ajanwachuku

No, absolutely. So there's a part where I have to get technical a little bit. So if you're not. There is a host of reasons, so although I don't wanna dis display disclose the name of the software that we use, I'll still disclose it anyway because I wanna be able to help as many people as possible.

So we use a software called Agency Analytics. It's not cheap but this is something that we use to keep track of campaigns. So essentially how we utilize this sss follow when we upload a website and a new account to agents analytics, we set up a number of things. You know, we make sure that your site map is set up, your search console is set up for Google and Bing.

make sure that your SEO and h site map are properly set up. Analytics is properly integrated with your search console. Once those stents are addressed, then you can worry about, oh, if, let's say for instance, you're not ranking, then you can kind of eliminate those items because if you're not ranking chances, sir, Take care of the initial items such as your site map, your robot txt you know, integration of your analytics and your search console and so and so forth.

You know, so if you did took care, take care of all of those items and you're still not ranking, then you know, in a dashboard like agency analytics, you can kind of track if you're losing or getting back link. So if you have any, you know, back links in general, or if you have, like, you know, if your competition are, let's say, you know, bombarding your website with spam links and there are ways to kind of figure out which back links are spam links and which ones aren't.

You know, if you eliminate all of that, And you are still not ranking, then that's when you need to consider, you know, reworking your content. You know, so I wouldn't recommend, you know, just start changing your content if you haven't done your due diligence to make sure that the technical stuff are taken care of first.

Andy Splichal

And that that's a, yeah, I mean, that's, that's a ton of, a ton of stuff to consider, you know, on that.

Olu Ajanwachuku

That's just a tip of the iceberg. I, I don't, didn't wanna go in that. Cause I know we are short on time, but yeah, that's just a tip of the iceberg in terms of the technical stuff that needs to be taken care of.

Andy Splichal

So what I guess let's, let's jump in and talk a little bit more, more about you and, and GVATE. What services. Do you offer clients?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yeah, so our like three top core services now are SEO search engine optimization and reverse SEO they're kind of like the same thing. One is to push you up and the other is to push down negative contents from the first video of Google.

The second service is pr. So we help our,

Andy Splichal

say that again. So to push down negative content from Google?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes. So sometimes you have, you know, contents on the first page that are unfavorable to your brand. It could be negative, it could just be contents that you feel does not resonate with your brand.

Andy Splichal

but it's it's your content.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Exactly. Okay. You know, so we pretty much, you know, can do reverse SEOs to just. Make that frustration look more appealing to make it, you know speak, you know the kind of volume that you wish first face to speak about.

Andy Splichal

Now, how do you do that? Is that removing that you're removing many tags? What the heck you do that?

Olu Ajanwachuku

that's special sauce. I can't, that's one thing, not

Andy Splichal

fair enough. Fair enough.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Because that's one of our value proposition that kind of helps set us apart from competition as well. But yeah, so there, there are ways to do it so that way you know what you need, what you want to show on the first page is actually showing.

And what you don't want show on the first video is not show. Okay? Yeah.

Andy Splichal

So, seo, reverse seo.

Olu Ajanwachuku

And then we offer PR services, like media outreach. So if a client wants to be featured, featured on like, Forbes, New York Posts and so on and so forth, we can help with that as well. And then finally we'll offer Google pay per click management.

Well, we've kind of stayed away from social media because it's the quality of leads from, you know, platforms like Facebook does not compare with the quality of leads from, you know, Google. So we don't really focus too much on social media advertising anymore. Just Google Paper per click.

Andy Splichal

Got it. And let's hear about your, your agency.

How long have you been Haded and what, where are you located?

Olu Ajanwachuku

So, yeah, so I mean this comp company started way before, wasn't registered like I was in college when I started it. So I was studying engineering and I was just, you know, I'm always thinking steps ahead. So I was like, you know, what am I gonna do when I finish college?

Like, am I just gonna work with engineering companies? And from what I've heard is like working with engineering company, you're just dealing with data and you know, nonstop. And it's kind of like redundant. And for me, I'm more of a creative person. Like I like. And things of that nature. So, and also solving problem and being able to see immediate impact.

So I, as when I was doing my research, I came across, across SEO as some means of actually helping people in, in this case, businesses, you know, achieve results within a re relatively short period of time. So that's how I kind of started the whole career within seo. So the company we registered in 2015, so we, you know, typically service clients out of New York and Florida.

And, and the service, you know, that we offer is very, the ones I mentioned earlier. And on top, even though we offer a service, we actually developed a software a long time ago that's on the Wix marketplace called Visitor Hook. It's a conversion marketing software. Oh, nice. Yeah. So that was when I thought I wanted to move in a direction of SaaS.

I, I just felt like SEO was more fulfilling. Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. So that's why I didn't make that full pivot towards, you know converting the company to like a SaaS company. And ever since it's, it's been really more or less like offering services to businesses. And a lot of times when companies come to us, they've gone to one to three so SEO companies.

Once to plug them into agency analytics. Everything just become visible. Cause we're very transparent with the clients. They get full access to our agency, agency analytics for their account. So what are, whatever we see, they see if their account's not doing good one month, they see it. And if it's doing good, they see it as well.

So, yeah. So for me, I just find like, you know, just being able to offer, you know, business as service where, you know you can see results within a short period of time. And it's not like cookie cutter where it's like you're doing the same thing over and over again. That's something I don't do too well with.

I don't do too well with just doing the same thing over and over again. I like to stimulate my mind every single day and Face, new challenges that so and so forth. So but yeah, so that's more or less how this has been kind of like unfolded over the years, just offering us your services to businesses, helping them achieve the level of ranking that they, you know, never imagined they could achieved on Google.

Andy Splichal

You know, one of my favorite questions that I'm always curious about the answer is, especially for people who have created an agency, is have there been any business books out there that you could attribute to your journey as an entrepreneur in, in creating your agency?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes. My, so that's a very good question.

So A friend of mine introduced me to a book a long time ago, and this was while I was still at the early phase of the agency. The book is called Blue Ocean Strategy by w Chan and Renee. So I'm not sure, are you familiar with Blue Ocean Strategy by any chance?

Andy Splichal

You know, I've read a lot and I haven't, have not not read that book or heard of it.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Interesting. Yeah, so it's pretty much about how. Businesses can set up shop in a competitive industry. In this case, the competitive industry is referred to as red ocean, and how you can kind of thrive in a red ocean and develop a blue ocean within that red ocean, by, you know, creating innovative services, creative pricing, and just having strong value proposition.

So this book has been like a guidance manual for me over the years in terms of, you know how to stay ahead of the competition, you know conducting competitive research on an annual basis. So there's something that I do personally to myself at end of every year where I research top competitors in my industry and see what kind of trajectory it there on, you know, what kind of new solutions they're offering, how we can be competitive, and so on and so forth.

So these are all, you know ideas. We're inspired by this book blue Ocean Strategy, so you definitely check it out.

Andy Splichal

So what's your Blue Ocean strategy? How is your agency standing apart from the competition?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yeah, so you know, first and foremost it's transparency. You know, one concern that every client always have is, Hey, I pay this guy or this company, this amount of money every month.

I don't know what's going on. They just send me a report, you know, once a month. I don't really know what's going on on a daily basis. Mm-hmm. I don't know what they're doing. So, Prioritize transparency above all us, and that's why we invest greatly in agency analytics because it allows us to, you know, be as transparent with our clients as possible so they can see clearly what we are doing at any given point in time in the day.

So it could be 12:00 AM. In the morning, and you want to see how your account is doing across, you know, analytics, Facebook, Google, like literally the platform will integrate all their marketing metrics into a single platform so they don't have to log into like a million different accounts to see how their business is, you know, performing online.

So that's number one, the transparency, you know, innovator strategies, strategy. So we're constantly innovating our strategy and also staying on ahead of the curve by, you know, exploring new technology like for instance, Chat GPT and figuring out ways to actually utilize that to amplify our current effort.

And like I mentioned earlier, you know, we did a blog in February and do, by using, you know, Chat GPT as a co-pilot, we actually rank that block, which is a pretty comparative term, you know, Being the future of search, you know, we're able to rank that blog all the way to the second page of Google within a matter of a month.

And we're literally standing on top of websites like Quora, you know, which is not, which is a very high competition website. But yeah, so that's one or less I would stand ahead of competition, you know, being transparent, being innovative, you know never, no, never stand in one place. Always seen, you know, what's the next step?

You know, how can we improve our process? How can we get results a lot faster? And so and so forth.

Olu Ajanwachuku

Now, do you have a favorite success story from one of your clients You could share? I would say one of my most favorite client is a company by the name Egusi Foods. It's an,

Andy Splichal

say that again.

Olu Ajanwachuku

E G U N S I F O O D S. So Iusi is a kind of traditional food from Nigeria, cause I'm Nigerian. Mm-hmm. And you know, I've never really worked with a client, you know, selling a traditional product before and one that pertains to one of my most favorite soup, which is a goose food soup. So for me, you know, this is one of the reasons why this account was one of my favorite accounts to work on because, you know, I was working on selling something that, you know close to me.

You know, and we did pretty good for this for this company somewhere so that if you Google African tomato soup now, it doesn't matter where you are. You Google African tomato soup on Google you find a website on the first video of Google. So, yeah. So that's more or less, you know, one of my most favorite account that we've worked on.

Andy Splichal

And are there any challenges that you struggle with in getting results for clients?

Yes. I think one of the biggest is like creative clients who come from the creative industry. So these kind of clients typically have a website that focus more on media contents, such as images and video and less textual content.

And as I've been advocating, you know, since the beginning of the interview, content is king. So it's always hard to convince these kind of clients that, Hey, we need more content. Because the pushback is always, well, I'm a photography business, or I'm affordable business and I don't want to have a lot of content.

I just want the pictures. That's all I wanna say. I was like, okay. Because what ends up happening is we have to kind of like shift our focus from content to mm-hmm. You know, speed. Technical, s e o, like working more on the backhand aspect of it. So Google was able to index the content a lot better.

And also backlink we actually have to focus a lot on backlinks, which is something I do not like doing. Like backlink we is good, but it shouldn't account for majority of your campaign strategy when it comes to seo. But that's, you know, one of the challenges I can think of, you know, when working with clients from the creative industries.

Andy Splichal

So, on the flip side, who, who is your perfect client for your agency?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yeah. So I mean, we typically work with b2b, B2C clients. It doesn't really matter what kind of industry you're from, you know, as long as you have at least like, let's say like $50,000 a year in SEO search budget budget, we can definitely help you out with your search campaign.

I mean, we've worked with clients from finance industry to real estate to medical industry you know, just to name a few. So we typically work with clients from different industries and verticals. But the main requirement is, you know, you could be a B2B or B2C and, you know, just make sure you have sufficient budget to just kind of ensure that we have to at least set up a basic campaign.

Andy Splichal

And, and how, how does your fee structure work?

Olu Ajanwachuku

So we typically charge like hourly. So we typically charge like a hundred dollars an hour. And then, you know, minimum of like, you know, it could be sometime, it could be less than 20 hours, but we tell clients the bare minimum should be like, you know 20 hours per month.

If it's more, if it's more of like a, an established company, we typically recommend anywhere from like 160 hours or more per month. This could be like law firms and things of that nature. Cause those kind of websites are usually more competitive when it comes to seo.

Andy Splichal

I see. And you guys just, you provide a log of, of what you worked at the end of the month as far as the hours?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes. So essentially, so the way we we do it is you, we set a fixed hour, but we usually do more work than the amount of hours simply because SEOs never ended. So we always keep track. So we usually software call Asana. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. So that's how we kind of keep track of all the task and, you know, and what we're spending our time on and so on and so forth.

And if a client wants to give access to Asana, like I said, transparency is one of our biggest value propositions. So we can give you access to that Asana for your account so you can kind of keep track of, you know, what task we're working on every single.

Andy Splichal

Well, this has been great. You've given a ton of information today. How, how can an interested listener learn more about working with you?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yes, absolutely. So they can learn more about, you know, working with me by just visiting our website, www.gvate.com. So that's gvate.com and just, you know, see what kind of services that we offer and just fill out a form to request for a free consultation.

Andy Splichal

Perfect. Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up?

Olu Ajanwachuku

Yeah, so what I would say is this, perhaps I didn't emphasize this enough businesses doesn't matter how small or big you are, you need to emphasize SEO audits. You need to conduct SEO audits on a monthly basis. You know, if you have the budget, Invest in agency analytics that's what we use.

We literally automate that. The whole process of audits. And the reason for this is because AI is becoming, you know a bigger part of search. Since AI's becoming a bigger part of search, these algorithms get smarter and smarter every day. And as a result, you need to ensure that you stay up to date with, you know, the never ending changes and searches by running those audits on a monthly basis.

And that's how you avoid finding yourself an institution where it's a hot season, meaning like the business. And that's when you get most of your business and for whatever reason, your traffic just ranking just tanked. And you have, and you didn't find out till close to the middle of that season that, hey, look, the reason why we're not getting as much business because our SEO is not, you know, it's not doing good.

So businesses should try their best to run audits on a monthly basis at least once a month. I will say the bigger your website, the more often you need to run those audits.

Andy Splichal

Well, that's a great tip. That's a great, what, what was the software again?

Agency analytics, it's not, it's not, it's not a low cost software, but if you have the budget, I highly recommend you invest in it.

But you can also invest in like spy food like you mentioned earlier as well. Semrush is great as well. You can run audits on those, but for us, you know, agency just makes it a lot easier cuz all of our marketing metrics is like in one place. You know, Google Analytics, I don't remember the last time I logged into Google Analytics.

I usually just go into our agency to see what everybody's working on and see how it comes up performing. But yeah, so that's the software agents analytics. I typically don't tell people about that, but I feel like, you know it's something that could really help a lot of businesses, especially now that people might be considering.

You know, attempted to do SEO by themselves.

Andy Splichal

Well that's great. Well, thank you so much for sharing that and for all the other stuff you shared today, Olu.

Olu Ajanwachuku

absolutely. I wanna thank you too for inviting me to your podcast and hopefully, you know, I get an invitation again in the future.

Andy Splichal

Awesome. Hey, for listeners, remember, if you'd like this episode, please go to Apple Podcast and leave us an honest review.

And if you're looking for more information regarding GVATE, or connecting with Olu, you'll find the links and the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our podcast resource center available at podcast.makeeachclickcount.com. We have compiled all the different past guests by show topic and included each of their contact information in case you would like more information on any of the services I've discussed during previous episodes with, that's it for today.

Remember to stay safe, keep healthy, and happy marketing, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.